Tuesday, September 8, 2015

The Mad Historian's Athenaeum, Vol. 1, No. 17

Another
entry in the growing line of the Oxford History of the United States, Grand Expectations covers the post WWII
era through the beginning of the Watergate years for the Nixon administration.
James T. Patterson earned the Bancroft Prize for this entry. He managed to
explain the dizzying heights that Americans reached for before coming to grips
with the problems that limited that grasp. He conveyed how Americans saw
themselves after the worst war in world history as saviors of democracy. He
then contrasted that with some of the views the rest of the world held of the
US in many cases.

The book is
a fabulous compilation of the various types of history the US went through in
this time. The emerging field of social history is on full display in the book
which manages to add to the complexity of the true story of this time period.
The ugly clash of conservatism versus liberalist is shockingly apparent as well
as the realization that both parties used communism and dissension as weapons
against each other. However, as the country began to develop a conscience over
the concept of equality, the forces split on the issue with both parties
undergoing a transformation in the 1960-70 years which would result in the
Reagan conservatism of the 1980s and beyond.

Patterson
shines with his explanation of the Civil Rights movement and doesn’t pull
punches as he describes the brutality of southern whites in suppressing the
civil rights of the black minority. The sheer ugliness of one group of people
using violence to deny equality to another is vivid. He also covered the
insanity of the anti-communism years as both parties used Red Scare tactics to
rally party faithful in their platforms. Later he would detail how this fear
factor would move headlong into standard GOP political tactics in his sequel to
Grand Expectations; Restless Giant.

All in all,
the book is a good and detailed explanation of how America moved during these
years and fell into the morass known as Vietnam over time. In the process the
country finds the rest of the world catching up economically and politically in
many ways while America battled its own internal demons. The twin forces of
egalitarianism and liberty are shown in their full panoramic view for it was
during this time that equality for all truly began to be realized after its
budding beginning in the American Revolution.

It is
definitely a worthy inclusion in the Oxford series and one most historians will
want on their shelves. It is useable in many classes covering the period,
especially the survey classes or any other ones that need information from the
period. I use it in my own American film history class as context material for
the students. The result is historical information meant to be read by any
level of adult audience interested in American history.